Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Male Feminists: Men Should Wise Up

Men should be feminists. 'nuff said.

==========================

from: The Independent Online Edition

Thirty years on, women still face discrimination in the workplace

On this day in 1975, campaigners celebrated as the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act came into force. Thirty years on, what has changed?

By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent

Published: 29 December 2005

Thirty years after Harold Wilson's Labour government put in place the country's first Sex Discrimination Act, Britain's women are still suffering from unequal pay and, increasingly, sexual harassment in the workplace.

A substantial pay gap between women and men performing equivalent work still exists three decades later, while figures also show a disturbing rise in complaints of gender-related abuse and ill-treatment of female staff.

Today's anniversary of the groundbreaking 1975 legislation, intended to herald a new era of equality between the sexes, will be celebrated by women's organisations throughout the UK. But although the gap between salaries paid to men and women in full-time work has closed, in other areas progress has been far slower, and in some cases negligible. According to Jenny Watson, the new chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), "some issues, like unequal pay and sexual harassment, remain far too common".

Women working part time today earn nearly 38.4 per cent less than men performing equivalent work. In 1975 the figure was 42 per cent. For full-time workers the gap is 17.2 per cent compared to 42 per cent 30 years ago.

Women are also bringing more complaints for sexual harassment. According to the EOC, half of women in the workplace have complained of some form of sexual harassment. In a landmark case in 1985, Jean Porcelli established that cases of harassment were covered by the Sex Discrimination Act. She represented herself in an Edinburgh tribunal, losing twice, before finally winning the legal argument. But latest research released by the EOC suggests the sexual harassment cases that actually reach an employment tribunal are only the tip of the iceberg.

The EOC helpline received 647 calls on sexual harassment between 1 April and 25 November, a rise of 10 per cent on last year. It was the fourth most common cause of complaint, after pregnancy and maternity, equal pay and work-life balance.

The rise in discrimination is confirmed by the EOC's decision to launch investigations into the harassment of women in the armed forces and the Post Office. One in five servicewomen in the Navy, one in eight in the Army and one in 10 in the RAF has suffered sexual harassment. Recent cases taken to employment tribunals included that of Padraigin Byard, a navy pilot, who said she was constantly subjected to sexist, derogatory and rude remarks, which were dismissed as being part of the "maritime tradition".

In another case, Catherine Brumfitt won £30,000 after complaining about the behaviour of a male sergeant. The tribunal said there had been undue concentration on sexual matters and crude and offensive language.

The harassment of women at work may not be as visible as it was 30 years ago but it has not gone away. Cases over the past few years show that harassment has become more sophisticated and more subtle. While women must still endure verbal sexual abuse they now also face sexual harassment by text and e-mail.

On top of this, each year about 30,000 working women are sacked, made redundant or leave their jobs due to pregnancy discrimination. Ms Watson said Britain's 30-year gender equality laws were failing to tackle the different causes of the pay gap and sexual harassment.

Earlier this year, Linda Weightman was one of more than 1,500 women health workers who won up to £200,000 each after an eight-year struggle for equal pay with male colleagues. She will share a £300m payout from an NHS trust in Cumbria in the biggest equal pay award on record.

Ms Watson said the current laws placed too much onus on individual women to fight for rights which should be guaranteed. "The existing laws rely on individuals to take their case to an employment tribunal," she said.

"It's time for employers to share more of the responsibility to bring about change by taking proactive steps to address inequality. Unless action is taken, individuals and employers will continue to suffer the damaging effects of the gender pay gap for at least another generation." She added: "Thirty years after the Sex Discrimination Act, we have made some real progress. We recently considered what a day without the Act would be like, and some of the situations women might typically face were truly shocking, like being forced to resign when they got engaged, being sacked as soon as they became pregnant, or working in environments where they were regularly subjected to blatant sexual harassment. It's a real victory that such behaviour is now clearly illegal, and women can appeal to tribunals for justice. But it's unfortunate that the onus of responsibility to bring about change has remained largely with individuals to bring cases."

The Department for Trade and Industry is working with Britain's unions to identify companies with the worst records.

Ministers have also begun a wide-ranging review into equality which include proposals to impose massive fines on employers who fail to protect women workers from discrimination.

Companies with the worst records would face investigation by the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article335480.ece

Friday, December 23, 2005

The Skies of the 60's: Homage to Bill Graham

Bill Graham cast a large shadow on the music scene during the halcyon days of the 60's and 70's. The master cylinder of live events on both coasts, he brought top notch rock, blues, jazz and even gospel musicians to audiences that were broad-minded and into more than the crass commericalism that incessantly spams us these days.

His story is incredible on many levels: Entrepreneurial, supremely human (he literally walked across Europe to escape the Nazis) and visionary.

Today, the Bill Graham's of the world are relegated to the back rooms of history, replaced by blue suits in the board rooms of the mega corps, replete with hip haircuts and "attitude". They couldn't hold Graham's jock strap and are in no way deserving of even knowing who Graham was.

Perhaps above all, he had an ear and the guts to develop artists in his own unique way. That's completely missing in this formula driven, crass, treat-consumers-like-the-default-ipso-facto-
mindless-drones-wall-street-sees-us-as music era.

Last, a favorite Graham story. Before the legendary Band of Gypsies (BoG) Fillmore East concert, Graham told Jimi that he was tired of all the stage antics and wanted to just see him play his ass off.

Jimi's answer was to go out, put his head down, and overwhelm the audience with his axe on cuts like "Machine Gun," in my opinion, one of the greatest electric guitar performances ever.

At concert's end, as the legend goes, Jimi walked off the stage, past Graham, and said, "How's that, muthafucker?"

Of the BoG performances (there were two) Graham would say that they were, "the most brilliant, emotional display of virtuosic electric guitar playing I have ever heard."

Jews say, "he's a mensch" to denote someone of admirable characteristics, but on the street it has a "hidden dimension," connoting something more. Bill Graham had "it."

Sadly, Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991, leaving us to the soul-less drivel of today's music industry.

But what a vision, what a life.

What a mensch.




Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Entrepreneurs vs. King Kong Corporations

Some of you know that I serve as an elected board member on a neighborhood council. Right now, there's a debate over corporate presence in the form of bus stop kiosks, billboards, etc.

This argument really goes to the heart of the "Small is Beautiful" point of view of EF Schumacher vs. the mega corporations that have tons of lobbying moolah, politicians in their back pockets, and stampede through communities obliterating entrepreneurs.

Here is my recent message to the board:

Hi All-

1) At the heart of this debate is the fundamental question of property and ownership, and the right to do what one wants with one's property. If Viacom (or Clear Channel, or...) pay the money, then they have the right to do what they want with their real estate. The counter to that is that that's an abstract argument, devoid of context.

2) As we can easily see with, to take a gross example, Walmart, these giant corporations come into communities and don't give a fig about local entrepreneurs. Case study after case study has shown the degradation to local entrepreneurs. The question then becomes - do communities REALLY want to live in a world where, no matter where one travels, there'll always be commercial entities like a thousand others?

3) Think about the xxxxxx Corridor right here in our own neighborhood council (NC) district. Who in their right mind would want to change this charming, personal and unique part of the country for, say, a Starbucks, a McDonalds, a Cingular/Verizon/Sprint... and yet, we see the encroaching presence of corporate America clamping down just across the street south of Olympic and on the north side as represented by Public Storage.

4) Entrepreneurs provide more jobs than corporations but lack the political clout of the mega corps. I see NCs as being at least a body that can offer up some voice for local entrepreneurs, and even perhaps organize them. The fact that entrepreneurs provide more jobs than corporations is an un-leveraged point in politics, because they have no lobby, no PAC and essentially no (organized and managed) money. Mega corps, on the other hand, funnel huge sums of money into campaigns and thus can have a politician in their back pocket. That's an unfair advantage and, I think, not only highly unethical but un-American.

5) So, if Viacom wants to come into bus stop kiosks (and wherever else) and bludgeon us with their spam, then at the very least local entrepreneurs should be allotted some kind of a fighting chance. But that's an ideal world that doesn't answer only to money. The sad fact is, if I'm Clear Channel, my billboard goes to the highest bidder.

At the very least, the community should be made aware of these points, among others. And I think the NC could do its part in disseminating this information.

-jp

Thursday, December 15, 2005

In Homage: KOAM & Gang - A Fan's Appreciation

I've been watching Howard Stern and posse for over 20 years. I began listening - regularly - for about 10 years, and now we're on the horizon of a new dawn, because tomorrow marks the end of an era: Howard Stern, the King of All Media, makes his historic move to Sirius, and with it, closes a chapter on one of the most remarkable careers in ANY medium.

This week was nostalgic: KC came back yesterday and Jackie came back today. The walk down memory lane was really something... you think back to all those mornings when you didn't want to wake up, drag your ass out of bed... and then you'd put the show on, and one minute it's the Wack Pack, the next it's a leader of the KKK, the next Jose Canseco's talking about players he's juiced - and naming names!!! - the next Howard and Gary are fighting, REALLY going at it, for 15 or 20 minutes, and the bottom line is it's all compelling and super entertaining.

There's a famous commercial that KLSX in LA used to run - and I assume Inifinity ran it nationwide - where the announcer would say that the average Howard Stern fan listens for 2 hours. The reason? They want to see what happens next.

Today, late in the second to the last day on terrestrial radio, they played the "What a Wonderful Guy" parody song based on Pops' rendition of "What a Wonderful World." Robin, Gary, Artie... all had stanzas. And there I was sitting at a desk, overlooking the Pacific, and I'm getting ... choked up. MAN!!!

It's hard to convey to non-fans what this show means to me and millions of others familiar with the gang.

This is one fan's heartfelt appreciation.

Howard and gang - thanks for all the times when you brought life into drudgery, and light into the darkness that is the everyday workplace we working stiffs inhabit. You exist for us, not the hoity toity. I can't even convey how many times I've looked up at fellow workers and watched them while they toiled, while you and the gang were there inside my head, entertaining me to bits.

That is priceless stuff.

Some - perhaps many - of my relatives and friends will question this post. Even with my heartfelt sentiments. That's okay, because this isn't about them.

Tomorrow the terrestrial door closes, and the one on the final frontier opens - what a fitting metaphor. And I'm sure greater times await, but oh man, what memories we have.

One never forgets the skies of one's youth...

See you on the other side, Howard. And Robin, and Gary, and Artie, and Fred, and Benjy, and Scott the Engineer, and Blue Iris, and BEETLEJUICE, and High pitch, and ...

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

"Responsibility" with no Repurcussions

Bush Jr. says that as president, he's "responsible" for making the decision to invade Iraq.

Wait a second.

If I am a suspect in a crime, and I admit to being responsible, aren't there then repurcussions?

Some would argue that his approval rating is his penalty. Whoopee doo.

He's a lame duck, and he and his administration simultaneously thumb their noses at us and, secretly laugh, have disdain for our popularity polls. He says that he wants to go down in history as a great president. Joe Biden, a guy I used to sorta respect, goes on Charlie Rose and said that he hopes Duhbya turns out to be a great president because it's in the interest of the country.

Bullshit.

In fact, I think it can be persuasively argued the complete opposite, because then maybe (enough) people will wake up!

But then again, so much crap has gone down and nothing has stirred beyond a threshold yet...

Friday, December 09, 2005

Bad Sista: An African Fem

Note: I've cleaned up and done some editing of this, one of the best if not the best writing on the way crazy white liberals "help" poor mudpeeps, in this case Africa, but it could just as easily have been Asian, Pacific, Latino, or Native mudpeeps. How she echoes my thoughts and feelings... Some of the links may be dead, but this writing, so intelligent, vibrant and alive, is a testament to the no horseshit attitude I admire and wish were the norm amongst so-called progressives.

Here then, in all her glory (save for the first line about crazy liberals - that's from my original posting), is "Blacklooks," a Bad OG - how I wish her blog were still in play!

-jp, November 7, 2007



Crazy liberals... it's about time someone called them out!


We are not whales!


The response from the liberal blogosphere to any criticism of the Live 8 concert and the ideology of paternalistic simplicity espoused by Geldof et al has been "at least they are doing something" or "its better than nothing" or a comment I read on African Bullets & Honey [note: Just re-checked for dead links; this is a defunct blog as of 11/07] "Pennies on the dollar are better than no pennies at all" or some other naïve variant. Statements such as these contain a loosely concealed self-congratulatory, paternalist and arrogant attitude towards Africa and Africans.

My argument is that No It is not better than nothing and that what they are doing is actually damaging to African countries. Furthermore the Live 8 concert reinforces racist stereotypes and like most liberal projects fails to challenge the status quo or address the real issues. It is as if people so much want to believe that Geldof's agenda for Africa has and will make a difference that they cannot see the wood for the trees. There is a desperateness about their rush to believe the superficial explanations offered to them. I can only conclude that the truth is just too much for people to bear. The bleeding hearts of liberalism cannot face the reality that their liberalism will solve nothing, that it colludes with the maintenance of the status quo and actually will cause more harm than good.

One of the pro-Geldof copouts is that Westerners are deprived of information about African countries and therefore something like Live 8 will give them the missing information. Rubbish. Westerners and other non-Africans do not need to live in Africa or live in any other part of the world to understand what is happening there. The information is available; Americans and Europeans have much more access to information than the rest of the world; if they choose not to read the available information that is because they have no desire or interest in doing so.

My prediction [note: ibid] that the presentation of African countries during Saturday's concerts would be a negative pitiful one was correct. We were presented with Africa as the scar of the world; passive, starving, diseased, dying and helpless. This was a conscious decision by the organisers of the concert to make the crowd sympathetic to their cause and at the same time make them feel good, make them feel as if they had made a contribution to saving Africa. I am reminded of an American TV programme we watched as children in Nigeria: The Lone Ranger. At the end of each programme after the Lone Ranger had fought off the baddies and saved the poor defenseless people his horse would rear up and he would shout "hiooooooo Silver"; and then ride into the wilderness till the following week. And so to we are all asked to give "thanks and praises to the great white chief Geldof on his shining white horse.

Madeleine Bunting writing in today's Guardian quotes Cambridge historian, John Lonsdale's description of Blair's Agenda for Africa as

a construction that infantilises not only Africans, unable to fend for themselves, but us too, like babies demanding the instant gratification of self-importance.


Not only does it infantilise Africans and Europeans, it also facilitates the continued appropriation of all things African and all things in Africa including our problems [note: yet another dead link] and reduces the issues to cheap sound bites and meaningless nauseating rhetoric that go down well in the kindergarden playground of liberal politics. She goes on to say

It is almost as if the west can't accept African agency: we want the simplification of the four Ps (picturesque, pitiful, psychopathic, and above, all passive) because it so neatly caters for our fears, derived from the colonial history of the "dark continent" of Joseph Conrad fame. Is this the price that has to be paid for an instant of western attention?

I would add that the Blair/Geldof agendas aim to reduce western guilt, fulfill the chronic need to "feel good" and reinforce western feelings of superiority towards the other all of which are underpinned by an insidious racism. A prime of this example is the lack of any "visible participation of Africans" in this whole enterprise which Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem describes as "trying to shave someone's head in their absence". http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/28386

As I have said, the Live 8 crusade and the response that "at least they are doing something" will damage African countries in a number of ways. Firstly Live8 and its accompanying ideology has served to undermine the anti-globalisation movement and any real challenge to changing the status quo. John Pilger critiquing the "unrelenting sophistry of Geldof, Bono and Blair" explains how the spin works:

The illusion of an anti-establishment crusade led by pop stars," which is in reality, "a cultivated, controlling image of rebellion - serves to dilute a great political movement of anger.

Secondly the crusade has managed to completely ignore the realities of the recent so called "debt relief" to the 30 countries in the world. Geldof and Bono both hailed the announcement as, a victory for millions.

An historic deal to free more than 30 countries from the crippling shackles of debt to the West was hailed by Bob Geldof yesterday as a "victory for millions"..... The $55billion settlement, which will immediately benefit countries from Ethiopia and Uganda to Rwanda and Mozambique, was the beginning rather than the end, the campaigning rock star said......The Observer.

...a little piece of history...

What we have here today is a little piece of history," the U2 frontman told Britain's Sky News television after the G8 agreed to wipe away $40 billion ($52 billion) of debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations, most of them in Africa.


The truth is however very different.

First of all only 18 countries are covered of which 16 are in Africa when in fact there are some 60 plus countries that should be relieved of their debt.

The IMF and World bank will "monitor the indebted countries progress and decide if they are to be relieved of the debt burden". In other words the debt is dependent on the IMF/World Bank and it is in their interest for the debt relief to take place as slowly as possible.

For each 1$ of debt relief, each country will loose 1$ in new aid from the International Development Association/World Bank. So what they give with one hand they take away with the other.

The worst aspect of the debt cancellation are the conditionalities imposed on those selected countries. "the reality is that the finance minister's proposal has the potential to deliver to the wealthy nations more money than they have written off" What is presented as "charity" is in fact more money for the West:

By a) boosting private sector development and b) good governance meaning privatising the public sector such as electricity and power, health and education; allowing foreign investment; removing obstacles to foreign investment (eg be less stringent on pollution requirements than in the west, allow foreign companies to bring in their own staff or staff from outside the local community in which they operate.); cooperation with the "war on terror"; purchase of Western goods (nearly 70% of US aid money is tied to the purchase of US products and in Italy 100% of aid is tied to the purchase of Italian goods).

These are the same IMF/World Bank/G8 policies that have been killing Africa in the past. Arms sales from Britain to Africa amount to more than $1 billion. So on the one hand Blair is advocating cancellation of debt WITH conditionalities that benefit Britain and on the other he is selling $1 billion worth of arms to African countries. How do policies such as these alleviate poverty and where is the justice? Whose victory are we celebrating here?

The new deal for Africa is the same as the old deal - nothing has changed. "The G8's interest in Africa is summed up in a 2003 World Bank report that identifies sub-Saharan Africa as the most profitable place in the world for direct foreign investment" - that is where the truth lies.

For a fuller explanation of the impact of debt relief on the 18 countries see:

Africa: repudiate foreign debt (no link)
Raised Voices www.raisedvoices.net
Vivelecanada www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050624095334717

Bad Dude: Pinter wins NPP, Asswhups Uncle Scam

Good ole Harry. Thank gawd there are sober peeps in these times not afraid to tell it like it is. Next up: The collected lectures of Hugo Chavez. Stay UP!!!


The Nobel lecture

Art, truth and politics

In his video-taped Nobel acceptance speech, Harold Pinter excoriated a 'brutal, scornful and ruthless' United States. This is the full text of his address

Harold Pinter
Thursday December 8, 2005

Guardian Unlimited

In 1958 I wrote the following:

'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.

Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me.

The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of The Homecoming is 'What have you done with the scissors?' The first line of Old Times is 'Dark.'

In each case I had no further information.

In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed didn't give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that matter.

'Dark' I took to be a description of someone's hair, the hair of a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into light.

I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.

In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don't you buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Honest. You think you're cooking for a lot of dogs.' So since B calls A 'Dad' it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn't know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.

'Dark.' A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.

It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can't dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.

So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.

But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.

Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.

In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on an act of subjugation.

Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.

Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.

But as they died, she must die too.

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now.

I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.

The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'

Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.

Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.

Finally somebody said: 'But in this case "innocent people" were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?'

Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,' he said.

As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.

I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.'

The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.

The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.

The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.

I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.

Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.

The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed.

But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.

Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.

The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.

Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I'm Explaining a Few Things':

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets! *

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.

I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right.

The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity - the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.

I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called 'Death'.

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man.

* Extract from "I'm Explaining a Few Things" translated by Nathaniel Tarn, from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

© The Nobel Foundation 2005

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Today I Guested on a Show...

...that's hosted by a friend, Shane Snipes. Shane and I met up about a yea and a half ago in the Big Apple when we were both participating in a conference as speakers. We hit it off, and he was cool enough to publish my article, "Small is Beautiful: Making Movies as if Filmmakers Matered," on his site, Indieville, at: http://indieville.net. Long story short, Shane's since moved to LA, and he's hosting, "Indie Fresh," which VOD casts over the net at http://musicplustv.com

It went well, and we're now talking about how to ramp up some ideas along with the studio we shot at. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dumbya's Robust Economy

In the wake of the Vioxx disaster, Merck announced that it will cut some 7,000 jobs, this on the heels of last week when GM announced some 30,000 jobs to be cut.

Earlier this year, Kodak had some 10,000 jobs cut.

HP had about 15,000, as I recall.

Air traffic controllers, overworked and understaffed because of hiring freezes, are now talking strike, but remembering the 80's when Reagan came down on them with a swift kick in the ass out to the street.

And yet, NPR's "Marketplace" just said that "consumer confidence" has risen - RISEN - from the 80's to the 90% range!!!

wow...

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Cars Cars Cars, Traffic Traffic Traffic, Pollution Pollution Pollution!!!

Being born and raised in car capitol, USA, that is, LA, having a car is a must. But the freeway system, once touted as the way of the future, is now critically over-stressed, and our city street system is likewise.

And here's a crucial point: LA is slated to grow by another 10 million people within the next 5 or so years. OY!!!

But the arguments against cars don't just stop at traffic. Here's a laundry list that I hope is thorough:

1. Pollution - Needs no further explanation, but just think of it as car dookey doo doo.

2. Acid rain - Related to pollution, it completes the cycle by leeching into crops and ground water. Whoopee, car dookey in my coffee!!!

2A. Global warming. Yeah yeah, dumbya denies it.

3. Health - Studies have shown that kids raised in heavy traffic areas have higher numbers of respitory problems.

4. Health 2 - Think about working like a dog all day, then think about hitting rush hour when your commute is elongated by at least double. See, here in LA, other factors play in this, such as real estate demand, which incentivizes folks to buy outside of the LA area. A friend bought a home in Rancho Cucamonga and works about 60-70 miles away, in Universal Studios. So now you're on the road about 2 hours. That's stressful. And where are the studies that show not just the long-term effects of this kind of life style, but, the ripple effects - alcoholism, drug abuse, over-eating, diabetes, wife/partner/child abuse, broken homes...

5. Costs - Money AND time; Here're the costs associated with owning a car (If I missed some, please write):

A. Your car note.

B. Insurance.

C. Gas.

D. Parking tickets.

E. Traffic tickets.

F. Traffic school.

G. Courts - Judges are pulled away to hear cases, officers are subpoenaed to appear, you must take time away from your life... all except your time on tax payer dollars, and at a time when the courts are bulging with dockets and officers should be tackling much bigger problems, imho. Lest you think this trivial, go down to superior court sometime early in the morning and see the line that snakes around waiting to get in to handle their traffic violations. Look at the docket of traffic cases EVERY DAY - I once had a chance meeting with someone who was a manager in the parking violation bureau for a city in L A I asked him where the revenue from parking ranked in their coffers, and he said without even thinking, that it was by far their number one cash cow. Now, with CAMERAS AT INTERSECTIONS, the ante has been upped by big brother. Is it for safety? Perhaps. Is it for cash? In a capitalistic society, where EVERYTHING is moving toward monetization, you betcha.

H. Smog test certification.

I. Car repairs.

J. Pay parking - pretty big business in LA & NYC. And while we associate pay parking with general paid lots, many if not all corporate buildings pay to park.

K. Impound and towing. This is a bummer for those that have had their rides impounded. It's a nice little cottage industry that involves the repo people, the courts, the cops, and big plots of land used to store the rides.

I'm sure there're more - let's hear them...

For a finishing touch, here's a NYT article on the Apple...

November 26, 2005
Battle Lines Set as New York Acts to Cut Emissions
By DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY, Nov. 23 - New York is adopting California's ambitious new regulations aimed at cutting automotive emissions of global warming gases, touching off a battle over rules that would sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions while forcing the auto industry to make vehicles more energy efficient over the next decade.

The rules, passed this month by a unanimous vote of the State Environmental Board, are expected to be adopted across the Northeast and the West Coast. But the auto industry has already moved to block the rules in New York State, and plans to battle them in every other state that follows suit.

Environmentalists say the regulations will not lead to the extinction of any class of vehicle, but simply pressure the industry to sell more of the fuel-saving technologies they have already developed, including hybrid systems that use a combination of electricity and gasoline. And that, they say, will curtail one of the main contributors to global warming.

"The two biggest contributors to global warming are power plants and motor vehicles," said David Doniger, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If you deal with them, you deal with more than two-thirds of the problem."

But automakers contend that the regulations will limit the availability of many sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, vans and larger sedans, since they will effectively require huge leaps in gas mileage to rein in emissions. The industry also says the rules will force them to curb sales of more-powerful engines in the state, and ultimately harm consumers by increasing the cost of vehicles.

The standards are the most ambitious environmental regulations for automobiles since federal fuel economy regulations were enacted in the 1970's. They will be phased in starting with 2009 models and require a roughly 30 percent reduction in automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the 2016 models.

The new rules will also effectively require an improvement in fuel economy on the order of 40 percent for vehicles sold in the state.

Ten states follow or plan to follow California's air quality rules, which have previously focused on auto emissions that cause smog, and the latest set of rules would for the first time limit carbon dioxide emissions. And as the largest of the 10 states, New York is being closely watched as it institutes the new rules.

If all 10 states and California succeed in enacting the rules, they will form a powerful alternative regulatory bloc accounting for about a third of the nation's auto sales.

"That is so much of the market it should reach a tipping point," Mr. Doniger said. "It won't make sense for the automakers to build two fleets, one clean and one dirty."

New Yorkers will certainly notice the regulations should they survive the court challenges. The state estimates that the rules will increase the cost of a new car or truck by more than $1,000 when fully phased in, an amount it expects car owners to recoup over time through savings at the pump. Vehicles will need to comply with the new standards to be registered in the state.

In early August, more than three months before the regulations were even adopted, automakers from Detroit to Tokyo joined in a suit to block them, making New York the latest legal front in the industry's fight against the measures. After California adopted the regulations in their final form in September 2004, automakers sued in state and federal courts, where the battle is still playing out.

California, unlike other states, has special authority to set its own air quality rules because it did so before passage of the federal Clean Air Act. Other states can pick California's tougher regulations over Washington's.

"If the California regulation actually were in effect today, only a handful of models would meet it," said Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes Toyota, General Motors and several other major automakers.

Judith Enck, a policy adviser to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said she expected more challenges on many fronts, with automakers battling New York every step of the way. "We're ready for them to file a lawsuit if the state sneezes," she said.

An analysis by the State Department of Environmental Conservation said it would take one to five years for drivers of cars, smaller sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to make up for the higher initial cost of their more fuel-efficient vehicles, assuming a gas price of $2 a gallon. For drivers of heavier S.U.V.'s and pickups, it would take one to three years.

But automakers estimate that the regulation will add about $3,000 to the cost of new cars and trucks and be hard to make up over time. To comply, they say, they will have to restrict sales of their vehicles with the poorest mileage, or redesign them to add new technologies, or to be more aerodynamic and lighter in weight.

"The California legislation would hurt the most the people that rely on large cars, pickups, S.U.V.'s and minivans," Ms. Bergquist said.

Environmental groups say the rules can be met with technology already on the shelf.

"They said that seat belts would put them out of business; they said that air bags would put them out of business; they said fuel economy and emissions regulations would all put them out of business," said David Friedman, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"It turns out it's their unwillingness to innovate that's putting them out of business right now," he added, referring to the current struggles of General Motors and Ford Motor Company.

The legal battles do come at an awkward time. After years of saying that customers cared little about gas mileage, automakers are rushing to assert their green credentials as oil prices have risen. G.M. and Ford have been particularly scarred by the sales slump of their large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

In a recent advertisement that has appeared in The New York Times and in many other publications, Ford's chairman and chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr., promoted his company's plan to sell 250,000 vehicles next year that can run on a corn-based ethanol blend instead of on gasoline, and 250,000 hybrid vehicles annually by 2010.

"Innovation is our mission," the advertisement said, adding that the company was building "smarter, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles."

Industrywide, however, the gas mileage of the average new vehicle sold in the United States is below what it was two decades ago, because leaps in efficiency have been overtaken by increases in the weight of vehicles and in the power of their engines.

The 10 states that either follow California's car rules or are in the process of adopting them are New York, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

While states are supposed to follow all of California's car rules or stick with Washington's, in practice that has not always been the case. The administration of Gov. George E. Pataki, however, has been an early supporter of the global warming regulations, getting approval from the State Environmental Board on Nov. 9. (The rules do not need to be approved by the State Legislature.)

Many of the industry's legal arguments against the rules are likely to be drawn from a playbook automakers have used in California. One contention is that the regulation of tailpipe emissions is superseded by Washington's authority to regulate fuel economy. Regulators in California have countered that they have authority to take action on any emissions threatening public health.

While global warming and what contributes to it have been controversial issues in the United States, a wide body of international science has linked it to health and environmental dangers, including increases in rates of asthma and infectious disease and threats to coastlines from rising sea levels.

The auto industry does not dispute the issue of global warming, but says policies should be set nationwide, rather than at the state level. President Bush has shown little inclination to do that, having rejected the Kyoto global climate accord early in his first term, but his administration has modestly increased federal fuel economy standards.

In New York, automakers also plan to argue that the regulations were not vetted as thoroughly as the state's laws require. And they will contend that the standards will actually harm the environment by leading to what Ms. Bergquist called "the jalopy effect" because higher initial car prices will discourage people from trading in older models that pollute more than newer ones.

"Less efficient autos will stay on the road longer, and that will increase smog-forming pollutants," she said.

Daniel F. Becker, a top global warming strategist at the Sierra Club, said, "If there were an Olympics of chutzpah, the auto industry would win a gold medal for suing New York claming that their clean car law is bad for the environment."

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Homage to Largo's Mitote: The Greatest Restaurant in the World

Since this is Thanksgiving and for us here in the States it's all about pigging out on food and watching sports and then waking up Friday and spending money we don't have while the vast majority of the people in the world are struggling or just plain jacked, I thought I'd do my part while writing a four line sentence.

So this is about food. The greatest food I've ever had.

Those who know me know that for me Mexican food is a religion. And Largo's Mitote was nirvana.

Largo's has a special significance in my life; my mom and dad frequented the fledgling Largo's when it began on the east side of Atlantic Boulevard, in the heart of East LA. That original location was right next to a used car lot, Atlantic Motors, which was run by my friend Rene Gastelum's family.

Largo's then moved almost directly across the street and stayed there until some brilliant community minded person turned it into a used car lot. About forty years of history, not to mention the greatest food I've ever had, gone.

Luckily, my daughter remembers going there as a kid...

Progressive Companies: Google

I watched a short hiring video from Google, and one of the things that stuck out was how progressive a culture it was. For a mega-corp, of course.

One employee remarked that, after stints at big corporate affairs like IBM, she was amazed at the speed of Google. She then described how, if someone had an idea at "Big Wig Company," it took 6 months to travel up to the mucky mucks, and then another 6 to travel back down to the grunts.

But at Google, if someone has a good idea and it catches fire, it can be acted upon within a matter of weeks, if not days.

Last, employees are allowed to devote 20% of their time (it may be more!) to developing their own projects, and employees also gather in groups to develop their own ideas which can then be implemented within the company at large.

That's bottom up management and flat(ter) organization. That's progressive.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Wireless Philly

Some time ago I heard about the City of Brotherly Love going wireless (www.wirelessphiladelphia.net) - WiFi to some, WAN-WiFi to others, and pretty damn tough to beat in my book. On PBS's "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," they ran a profile tonight about the launch. In addition, it featured a housing project where a teenage Muslim girl had learned to tear down and build computers, and how now her friends and family come to her as the expert - shawl and all. It also showed other kids in the projects learning networking (the hard wired kind) and software.

Pretty great stuff.

Interestingly, the ISPs are against this movement, one verizon villain arguing that, "The government regulates us, taxes us and now they want to compete against us, and we think that's unfair."

Ha! Now THAT'S rich.

Further, Congress now has a ban on cities enabling wireless ... or so I understand it. If I'm wrong, please correct a mundo me.

Last, here in LA, Joseph Loeb started Breakaway Technologies long before any digital initiatives. He correctly sensed that the so-called "digital divide" was a crucial one. His story is a great one, but I'll leave it to you to fish for it. Breakaway can be found at: www.breakaway.org

Friday, November 18, 2005

The Hierarchy of Non-Profit Work

The popular notion of the conservative right by the left is that they are so much better organized (they are), better funded (somewhat true) and give better strategy (they do).

Now, I can't speak for non-profit work on the right, but I can on the other side. For the past seven years I've been involved in non-profit work toward causes I felt worthy, but one thing has always stuck out like a sore thumb: the organizations were always lacking money.

The bigger names - The NAACP, ACLU... - they have plenty of money. But for the vast majority there is a curious lack of funds. And that has a direct impact on the ability of orgs to move messages out to the masses.

With the NAACP, for example, you can go in to their headquarters and see staff churning away on issues and projects and programs. This is also probably true for smaller non propfits, but there is a crucial difference: The smaller orgs do not pay their staff.

The end result is that the overseers get paid while volunteers do the heavy lifting. Without pay.

This creates an endless cycle of churn, because people get burned out on working for nothing, while the overseers get all the accolades and publicity. And Salaries. And benefits.

It also partially explains why most of these orgs, while perhaps worthwhile in spirit, don't gain any traction in the marketplace of ideas.

That sucks.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Bad Dude: Stuart Hall

One of the few people that left a lasting impression on me during my mis-education was Brotha Stuart Hall. His, "The Determinations of News Photographs," should be required reading for those who want to go beyond the catch-all, "It's the media...."

...the media ignores the real issues with which black people must contend. This is because the media, on the whole, naturally gravitate to the liberal middle-ground: they find conflict and oppression - the real conditions of black existence - difficult and awkward. They tend to redefine all problems as failures in communication.

Stuart Hall's achievement lies in the rational intensity he brought to the 1970's race-media debate. His politically potent arguments are just as central to our contemporary media concerns - from press freedom and the role of class, power, and institutional racism to the most intricate questions of minority images and employment in the press and journalism schools to mass communications studies and media ethics. Today, with mounting criticism of negative black images and under-representation in the media, Hall's brilliant analysis helps us to understand why colour-coded newsrooms and views of modern society must be changed.

There's plenty of him on the web, so Google him. If you're interested in mass- media communications, hegemony, race... you are in for a treat.

Van from Can

One good turn deserves another. My Azn sista Van from Can - formerly Van in Can, but now she's in Modesto, Cali - deserves mention. Studying media and lighting fires under the man's butt. Catch Van at: http://vanessa_au.blogspot.com

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

From the "Bigger's not Better" Files: Wal-Mart

Robert Greenwald's, WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE, has set the world's largest everything rocking on its heels. Good for him, and good for us. His previous film, OUTFOXED, took an acid look at Fox News and roasted them on the spit pretty damn well.

Of note to indie filmmakers: both OUTFOXED and WAL-MART have and are setting new paths for distribution and marketing, completely in alignment with my filmmaking philosophy.

To locate a screening of WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/findall.php

To see my philosophy of indie filmmaking, see:

http://sibmovies.blogspot.com

-jp

Monday, November 14, 2005

FU!

A while back I was having a conversation with one of my sports fan friends, and we wondered why it is that in pro sports such as basketball, football or baseball:

1) Owners are organized and represented by lawyers;

2) Players are organized and represented by unions and agents (and lawyers);

3) Advertisers (spammers) are organized and have clout and representation through their marketers and ad agencies;

4) Mass media is organized and has representation through leveraging their corporate backing and monopoly on the airwaves (courtesy of the FCC);

BUT,

5) Fans are completely UN-organized and lacking in representation.

"Fans Union" - FU ;) - is a necessity to level the playing field. And if it's true for sports, it's too true for consumers in general. Here's a group I stumbled upon - let me know if you think they're doing something worthwhile.


and for their podcasts:



-jp

From the, "Profits Over People" Files: Picking on Students

When reading the article below, let's not forget that along with health care, many industrialized western nations provide free education - I remember once having a discussion with a Swedish couple - one was a biologist (PhD) another an MD - and both said their educations were free. They made faces when I asked about taxes, but when I asked the million dollar question, "Would you trade your system of higher taxes with health & education (and other social welfare benefits like paid maternity leaves at 100% for a year, 80% for a second year, childcare, etc...) for ours?", they, like Canadians, laughed in my face and said no way.

The US is the wealthiest nation in the world, but only for some.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202746_pf.html

washingtonpost.com
Making Students Pay

Thursday, November 3, 2005; A20

IT'S COMPLICATED, byzantine and -- let's face it -- not the world's most fascinating subject. Even so, it's hard to understand why the federal student loan program attracts so little outside scrutiny. The Senate is likely to vote today on a budget reconciliation measure in which the largest source of "savings" by far comes from the student loan program. The authors of that measure, which the House will tackle next week, say that money comes from cuts in subsidies to lenders. Read the fine print, though, and it seems that, in fact, the "savings" come from increased revenue. And that revenue comes from students, who will be paying higher interest rates to generate it.

That, at least, is the conclusion of a report published this week by the New America Foundation. The report is by Michael Dannenberg, a former Senate staffer who has helped write student loan laws in the past. It notes that under the new rules, students and parents, instead of paying slightly less than the market rate, with the difference made up by the government, will be paying slightly more, with the extra going to the government. (Although lender fees have also gone up, there is no guarantee that those won't be passed along to students as well.) Some of that "saved" money will apply to the budget deficit, and some will go to pay for more tuition grants to the very poorest students. But in either case, the end result is that Congress, rather than cutting the program, as the measures' advocates imply, is actually expanding it.

Even odder, Congress has still made no attempt to cut the cost of student loans in one obvious way that would not harm students. The Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget and now the Government Accountability Office, in a newly released report, have all concluded that subsidized, guaranteed student loans, made through lenders, are costing taxpayers significantly more than would direct loans, which cut out the lenders. Should anyone on the Hill care to point it out, there is an obvious source of genuine savings in the student loan program: Offer students small incentives to choose direct over subsidized loans. But are there fiscal conservatives, in either party, who are willing to risk the wrath of lenders and say so?

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

From the Dirty Laundry Files: Halliburton a Year Later

Among and amid the other evils visited upon us (as in "us, not them") is the on the down-low about Halliburton.

Ask most peeps about Halliburton, and what can they say beyond knowing dick was its CEO and maybe that they know Halliburotn received no-bid contracts. But that last point raises the question: WHY and HOW Halliburton received preferential treatment.

It's also good to know that there are good peeps out there with a conscience. Sista Bunnatine (Bunny) Greenhouse is one. We need more...

-jp

ps: This story was covered much more extensively by Vanity Fair I believe back in the April '05 issue...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102504V.shtml

Beyond the Call of Duty

By Adam Zagorin & Timothy J. Burger
Time Magazine
Sunday 24 October 2004

A whistle-blower objected to the government's Halliburton deals-and says now she's paying for it.

In February 2003, less than a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bunnatine (Bunny) Greenhouse walked into a Pentagon meeting and with a quiet comment started what could be the end of her career. On the agenda was the awarding of an up to $7 billion deal to a subsidiary of Houston-based conglomerate Halliburton to restore Iraq's oil facilities. On hand were senior officials from the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aides to retired Lieut. General Jay Garner, who would soon become the first U.S. administrator in Iraq.

Then several representatives from Halliburton entered. Greenhouse, a top contracting specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers, grew increasingly concerned that they were privy to internal discussions of the contract's terms, so she whispered to the presiding general, insisting that he ask the Halliburton employees to leave the room.

Once they had gone, Greenhouse raised other concerns. She argued that the five-year term for the contract, which had not been put out for competitive bid, was not justified, that it should be for one year only and then be opened to competition. But when the contract-approval document arrived the next day for Greenhouse's signature, the term was five years. With war imminent, she had little choice but to sign. But she added a handwritten reservation that extending a no-bid contract beyond one year could send a message that "there is not strong intent for a limited competition."

Greenhouse's objections, which had not been made public until now, will probably fuel criticism of the government's allegedly cozy relationship with Halliburton and could be greeted with calls for further investigation. Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiary has been mired in allegations of overcharging and mismanagement in Iraq, and the government in January replaced the noncompetitive oil-field contract that Greenhouse had objected to and made two competitively bid awards instead. (Halliburton won the larger contract, worth up to $1.2 billion, for repairing oil installations in southern Iraq, while Parsons Corp. got one for the north, worth up to $800 million.) Halliburton's Iraq business, which includes another government contract as well, has been under particular scrutiny because Vice President Dick Cheney was once its CEO. The Pentagon, concerned about potential controversy when it signed the original oil-work contract, gave Cheney's staff a heads-up beforehand. (TIME disclosed that alert in June.)

Greenhouse seems to have got nothing but trouble for questioning the deal. Warned to stop interfering and threatened with a demotion, the career Corps employee decided to act on her conscience, according to her lawyer, Michael Kohn. Kohn, who has represented other federal whistle-blowers, last week sent a letter-obtained by TIME from congressional sources-on her behalf to the acting Secretary of the Army. In it Kohn recounts Greenhouse's Pentagon meeting and demands an investigation of alleged violations of Army regulations in the contract's awarding. (The Pentagon justified the contract procedures as necessary in a time of war, saying KBR was the only choice because of security clearances that it had received earlier.) Kohn charges that Greenhouse's superiors have tried to silence her; he says she has agreed to be interviewed, pending approval from her employer, but the Army failed to make her available despite repeated requests from TIME.

"These charges undercut months of assertions by Administration officials that the Halliburton contract was on the level," says Democratic Representative Henry Waxman. As the Corps's top contract specialist, the letter says, Greenhouse had noted reservations on dozens of procurement documents over seven years. But it was only after she took exception to the Halliburton deal that she was warned not to do so anymore. The letter states that the major general who admonished her, Robert Griffin, later admitted in a sworn statement that her comments on contracts had "caused trouble" for the Army and that, given the controversy surrounding the contract, it was "intolerable" and "had to stop." The letter says he threatened to downgrade her. (As with Greenhouse, the Army did not make Griffin available.) When the Pentagon's auditors accused KBR of overcharging the government $61 million for fuel, the letter says, the Army bypassed Greenhouse. Her deputy waived a requirement that KBR provide pricing data-a move that looked "politically motivated," the letter says.

The Pentagon maintains that it awarded Halliburton's Iraq contracts appropriately, as does a Halliburton spokeswoman. A senior military official says the Army "has referred the matter to the inspector general of the Department of Defense." As for Halliburton, it has faced alleged cost overruns, lost profits and seen at least 54 company contractors killed in Iraq. Greenhouse, meanwhile, has requested protection from retaliation. But her career-and reputation-are on the line.